Toronto Congresshttp://www.livingchurch.org/taxonomy/term/1381/all
enSix Steps Post-Torontohttp://www.livingchurch.org/six-steps-post-toronto
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">By Ian Ernest</span></p>
<p>As we meet to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Toronto Anglican Congress, it is good that we first remind ourselves that the notion of “mutual responsibility and interdependence in the body of Christ” emerged from it. Partners in Mission was probably a resulting child of the Congress. Consequently, a pathway for the knitting of the “bonds of affection” within the Anglican Communion was traced. This led to a change in our mindset about what we as Anglicans were to do and be in the world. But as the years went by, the dreams expressed by the Anglican Congress failed to be realized as provinces were more preoccupied by domestic issues, and part of this notion of being mutually responsible and interdependent was lost.</p>
<p>As we look around, we see that the worldwide fellowship of autonomous Anglican provinces finds it difficult to hold itself together as the “Instruments of Unity no longer have the ecclesial and moral authority to hold the Communion together,” as the primates of the Global South declared in 2007. It is a fact that the events of the past ten years in issues of human sexuality and doctrine have affected our life together. We have seen how the decisions made by the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church in Canada in 2003, 40 years after the Anglican Congress, have gone against the essence of what it means to hold “mutual responsibility and interdependence in the body of Christ.” This very sad situation has thus forced the primates to admit, at their meeting held in Dar es Salaam in 2007, that the “tension was so deep that the fabric of our common life has been torn.”</p>
<p>As commented in the <em>Church Times</em> of August 16, “the body of Christ seems not a reality, but an ideal hardly to be grasped.”</p>
<p>So it is very appropriate after 50 years for us to go deeper in our study of the essence of what being mutually responsible and interdependent means in the body of Christ. Here I wish to quote the Rev. Jesse Zink, author of the forthcoming book <em>Backpacking through the Anglican Communion</em>, who commented in the <em>Church Times</em> on the Toronto Anglican Congress:</p>
<p style="margin-left:.25in;">It is worth returning to the manifesto and the period that produced it. In its emphasis on the patient work of building genuine relationships across lines of difference, the importance of genuinely coming to know one another in the context in which each lives, and above all in its recognition that God is always calling us to something greater that ourselves.</p>
<p>We know that following these sad events, the Lambeth Commission was established to address among other things the “legal and theological implications of the decisions” of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada. This commission then recommended “adoption in the long term of an Anglican Covenant which would support an agreed framework for life together as members of a global family of churches.”</p>
<p>For now the Anglican Covenant is not being adopted by most of the provinces, so we are in crisis. But in the same breath we realize that the Anglican Communion has no global system of canon law and that authority is vested in each church, which has its own constitutional system of governance. To our credit, “historically the creative tension between autonomy and communion and its adaptability to serve the gospel in a world of constant change has been one among many achievements of Anglicanism.”</p>
<p>But what is a crisis? While <em>crisis</em> sounds the note of impending danger it also opens to opportunities. According to Scripture, a crisis is a divine opportune moment for appropriate action. This is exemplified in the Bible in the stories of Joseph and Jonah. We are in crisis and things will never be the same again.</p>
<p>The emerging role of the primates, the priority given to theological education, the changing shape of the Anglican Communion with the powerful voice of the Global South and of GAFCON, give to us a good moment at which we can consider a new vision for world mission. In fact, there is in this moment of crisis a moment of decision that we must be ready to meet.</p>
<p>We need to understand what kind of community the Anglican Communion is. We need to acknowledge the potential for transformation that we possess. This will compel us to recognize, in the midst of present tensions and challenges, that the only thing that matters is for the Church to be faithful to God’s mission, his word, by which he addresses us and informs our vocation. Part of the problem in the Anglican Communion today results from the lack of clear understanding that mission belongs to God and that the Church — the one holy catholic and apostolic Church to which we all belong — is an instrument of that mission.</p>
<p>This Church, as the Body of Christ, is the expression of the work of the Holy Trinity in the world. The action of the Holy Trinity can be witnessed through the visibility of the people of God. The first three centuries witnessed the flourishing of Christianity and at that time the Church consisted of scattered little groups of insignificant people, many of them slaves, persecuted and threatened on all sides. Yet they turned the world upside down. We must not permit ourselves to think that the present crisis we face as a Communion is an indication of failure or defeat.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, it is certainly a factor that we have to consider honestly if we are to play our role in God’s mission within the universal Church. In Acts we are given a picture of the Church as a community that makes Christ visible. We are an “apostolic” Church and we trust that the acts of the Holy Spirit among the people who have been called together in Christ make Jesus visible. So in spite of the awareness of the problems that threaten our unity as a Communion, and of the bitterness and fear that this can bring us, it is good for us to trust the Holy Spirit and to let him bring Christ into the situation to make a Christlike difference.</p>
<p>At times we are not fully aware of the potential for transformation that the Church possesses. We are called to recognize that this potential is a gift from God and thus as a Church we have something to offer to the world. As theologian Yves Congar writes:</p>
<p style="margin-left: 40px;">To rediscover the beauty of that faith, as it was in its primitive beginnings, we have to take a deeper look at Sacred Scripture, and study the Fathers of the Church. And only then will the Church speak to the world in a language it can understand.</p>
<p>This brings us to the role of the Church and Christians in the world. It is a world created by God, intended for great purposes, involving great risks. We may have heard it before, but it is good to remind ourselves that the Church exists for God’s mission in the world. Both the Church and the world belong to God, and his designs for the Church and the world are basically the same. The Church should not separate itself from the world and the whole of creation in its conception of their ultimate purposes, because the God we serve is Creator, Redeemer, and Restorer of Creation. Our responsibility as the Anglican Communion within the holy catholic and apostolic Church is to proclaim the full gospel, to see that all things are summed up in Christ and that he becomes the Lord of all life.</p>
<p>Why is it that people are not attracted and astonished by what God can fulfill for them? Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury, described the situation in one of his Bible studies at the 13th meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council held in Nottingham in 2005:</p>
<p style="margin-left: 40px;">Because, in fact, we are slipping back fast into something like the ancient world. We are slipping back towards a world of narrow tunnel vision of religions and superstitious practice, a world where lots and lots of people have their lords and God, their practices and their mysticisms, that do not really relate to each other. We are slipping away from the idea that there might be a faith that would bring all human beings together. We are slipping back socially and internationally into the assumption that there really are such differences in human beings that we can forget about God’s universal righteousness.</p>
<p>We men and women of all generations can thus be overpowered by what we most want to possess. We become unreasonably passionate by threats to our survival, our possessions, and our basic needs. This may lead to divisive, irrational, and destructive situations. These can also penetrate the human-made structures governing our lives. Evil then emerges and surrounds us. This can also happen in our Christian circle when mission becomes simply what the Church as an institution does and not what God intends to do though the Church. We are called to discern for what and where the Holy Spirit is leading us. Hugh Montefiore, former Bishop of Birmingham, offers these words of warning in <em>Man and Nature</em>:</p>
<p style="margin-left: 40px;">There comes a point at which evils become so entrenched in society that they acquire a life and momentum of their own which may be called demonic. There are superhuman dimensions of evil which neither individual men nor society as a whole seem able to control. Wars escalate … the arms race has got out of control and the less desirable aspects of technology proliferate in spite of us.</p>
<p>This being said, it should not reduce our human responsibilities as it may lead us to place the blame for our failings and sins upon external forces. Nor should this prevent the Church from fulfilling the mission that God has entrusted to it, to set for itself the prophetic task that is crucial to its role in the world today.</p>
<p>Seeing ourselves as a Communion in God’s mission, it becomes our responsibility to intensify the recovery of a biblical worldview and a sense of apostolicity. Unless we see that sin overshadows the full potential of the charisms of creation and the glory of God, it will be impossible to give a sense of purpose to this world we live in. We must recognize the deconstructive effect of secularization and materialism and how elements of paganism infiltrate our way of thinking and our standards of living. The Church in this process of recovery proclaims that God is Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier of our world and that there is a new creation given by Jesus and empowered by the Holy Spirit.</p>
<p>When the Church is preoccupied with its internal agendas, it fails to proclaim God as all-embracing, and it fails in extending opportunities for men and women of this age to change, to be open to a greater view of life that is biblical. There is a need in our Communion for repentance in all areas of our lives. But this call is not to be limited or restricted to personal and family issues; it should also address structural, economic, political, and social sins of our own making that we take for granted. We therefore need to recapture our love for and confidence in God’s Word, and to transmit this to future generations.</p>
<p>One of our great responsibilities is to call people to a totally new way of life, a new worldview, and a reformed mindset. It is the only way to our becoming stand-ins for Christ and living a God-centred life. The Church has to dare to recover its authority, and thus bishops are called to exercise their role as teachers and senders. In the New Testament the principal word for authority, <em><u>exousia</u></em>, means “strength of character” and not “an official position.” The leaders of the Communion have to teach the people that we are all called to hold an authority that acts as an <em>alter Christus</em>, a Christic presence to others: people who are imbued with a desire to become truthful, prayerful, and self-giving servants of God. This is what we Christians pray to become. One of the eucharistic rites used by many of us round the Communion describes this at its best: “Fill us with your grace and heavenly blessing; nourish us with the body and blood of your Son that we may grow in his likeness.”</p>
<p>As Christian mission reveals the yearning of God to embrace humanity in love, it is an imperative to offer a fresh vision of mission in the challenging environment of a globalized world. The Anglican Communion is itself a fruit of a vision for world mission. Although the Decade of Evangelism (1990-2000) in the Anglican Communion was a mixture of success and failure, it drew attention to this founding perspective, which is still encouraging churches of the Communion to explore what mission and evangelism might mean for a new era. We are indeed witnessing growth and development in many parts of the Communion and more particularly in the Global South. This is influencing the nature of the Communion at large. Consequently, we are a family of churches that find our Communion in mission. This Communion in mission is well described by the primate of the Anglican Church in Kenya, the Most Rev. Eluid Wabukala:</p>
<p style="margin-left:.25in;">We must act out of our God-given identity; we must be true to ourselves as we are in Christ crucified, redeemed through the cross where God’s justice and mercy meet. This is what it means to act with authenticity. It is not a matter of following our subjective dreams and feelings, but being true to the one who has risen from the dead, so that we might live not for ourselves, but for him who died and rose again for us.</p>
<p>People in the Communion in mission give due consideration to “the patterns and traditions of our past” but also affirm that they are developing as they are being transformed in Christ.</p>
<p>Facing the challenging issues of today, it is not easy to indicate where we are heading as a church. The Communion faces a historical challenge: to express our unity, we have to define the resources that we have inherited and reform them if necessary. The heritage and the tradition of our particular culture and context are not entirely adequate for the challenge. A process of reformation would strengthen our identity. These reformed resources would strengthen our identity as a Communion. As a Communion in mission, we need to sharpen our identity and our understanding of God’s mission in order to address the needs of our fellow human beings, as we are doing already in many parts of the world. In so far as we try to do this, I am convinced that we will be able to contribute to the future of both the world and the worldwide Anglican Communion. To enable this contribution to bear fruit, it is essential that we have a clear understanding of our identity in Christ, which can only come from a doctrinal foundation.</p>
<p>This question comes again and again: What is the nature of Anglicanism?” Is it true, as has often been noted, that we lack doctrinal integrity? This is of profound importance to us in the Province of the Indian Ocean: What as Anglicans do we stand for?</p>
<p>Archbishop Trevor Huddleston, one of my predecessors as Archbishop of the Indian Ocean, answers this question: “In order to find out what characterizes Anglican doctrine, the simplest way is to look at Anglican worship and to deduce Anglican doctrine to it.”</p>
<p>The Lambeth Conference of 1978 stressed this:</p>
<p style="margin-left: 40px;">The recent adoption by almost all Anglican Provinces of new forms of liturgy, which clearly resemble each other in their main outlines, in fact brings into prominence aspects of doctrine not previously given particular stress. Among these might be mentioned the congregation’s part in celebrating the Eucharist, the responsibility of ministry laid on all Christians, and the setting of the death of Christ within the whole context of the creation, history of salvation, incarnation, resurrection, ascension, and outpouring of the Holy Spirit.</p>
<p>So from our heritage it is clear that we do possess an abundance of riches on which to build our togetherness in faith and the worship of the “one Lord of the one, holy catholic and apostolic Church.” Is this sufficient for our work of mission and evangelism? Not entirely! As in the movement of reform that swept the Western world in the 16th century and touched many in the centuries that followed, we should reach for a renewed confidence in the claims that in Christ all things find their meaning and purpose.</p>
<p>We are compelled to acknowledge our human interdependence, for any event in any part of the world has an immediate impact on every other part. But in this globalized world there are deep and wide divisions, an indisputable drift to alienation and separation between nations and men. This state of alienation undermines stability, and we have seen during the past years how human beings have the power to destroy. It is because of this that the Anglican Communion, which forms part of the one holy catholic and apostolic Church, cannot and must not retreat into itself, in spite of prevailing tensions that seem to undermine its unity. It is because of this that we Anglican Christians must proclaim the good news, that our world is God’s world and that he so loved it as to send his Son to share its life and, in sharing it, to save it.</p>
<p>As a Communion we have much to be proud of. We have had saints and martyrs who have been missionaries and evangelists and we have had prophets of their time: people like William Wilberforce, William Temple, and Desmond Tutu who fought the dreadful social evils of their day, and not only proclaimed a “social gospel” but by their actions lived it.</p>
<p>The challenges of discrimination, of lack of opportunities for the vulnerable, of prejudice, of abuse of power, take various patterns in different nations and in distinct generations. All of them destroy human dignity. All are an insult to man and woman made in the image of God. This is indeed a challenge to our faith. Even though in some parts of the world, as in my own country Mauritius, this challenge does not present itself in such unyielding forms, we dare not be complacent. An overriding priority for the Anglican Communion worldwide is that we sustain a powerful witness to the Christian faith, as formed in the particular crucible that we call Anglicanism in the world. As we are aware, in spite of its origins, Anglican Christianity depicts a particular and distinct kind of Christian faith. It stresses the benevolent care of God for human society, and focuses upon the Incarnation of the Son of God in the person of Jesus Christ. Because of that discernment in God’s providential presence in society, this particular and distinct expression of Christian faith is one of engagement in society, which in itself is God’s mission.</p>
<p>The issues that are challenging the unity of our Communion and causing a crisis are indeed provoking us to see opportunities for the development of a new way of being church in the face of a postmodern and globalised world. It is time for us to know what we must perpetuate, what we must retain, and what we must seek to transform. Is it the heritage from the Church of England that makes us who we are? (I refer to the collective belief and received tradition which we people of the colonies have uncritically accepted and used to justify who we are and what we do.) Not entirely. The last 50 years have seen the development of the Global South and many attempts have been made at nation-building, often in stark contradiction with the colonial past. The values of pre-colonial cultures are being resurrected.</p>
<p>The liturgy has for four centuries proved a unifying factor and English values have long influenced the Anglican Communion, although the emergence of strong expressions of Anglicanism in other parts of the world is leading to a shift in the centre of gravity of our Communion. As new nations struggle to come to terms with their individual histories, identities, and values, how does the Anglican Communion face a post-colonial world and retain a sense of worldwide unity, faith, and fellowship? Are we ready to live with difference, to live with diversity — not to tolerate differences, but to respect them? Or should we curtail our differences in order to retain some form of uniformity? Can we do it? The challenge of a global church is to deal with the differences within itself.</p>
<p>Conversely, the insight of Toronto 1963 was that the mission of the Anglican Communion defines our vocation, what we ought to become. If this is the case, then the issue of our integrity is bound up in recognizing with honesty and Christian boldness that it is not the past that determines our identity but rather the mission that we have received from God, which leads us into the future.</p>
<p>In his book <em>Highways and Hedges</em>, Bishop John Howe wrote this about the development of Anglicanism:</p>
<p style="margin-left: 40px;">For those parts of the world which for years have been aware of a decline, and therefore aware of all the problems and discouragements that go with that situation, there is encouragement in the knowledge that by lifting their eyes, they perceive that they are members of a Communion that grows.… The measure is the Scripture and the Church that sprang from what Jesus did and said. The Fatherhood of God is universal. God is the Catholic Creator of heaven and earth. The cross is for all, not some. So the growth is according to the divine mind, it is development.</p>
<p>The distinctive marks we share as Anglicans provide us with an identity that surpasses many historical realities. It is time for us to face the task of reinvention according to our inherited values as a church, as reformed by our experience of a Christ who transforms all things. We are consciously part of the wider community of the world, rather than belonging to the British Empire. We are a worldwide church, a Communion of autonomous provinces, and our interactions are not always effective. Our capacity to understand other cultures and their competence to understand ours is not yet a reality. Yet such understanding of ourselves and others is an essential part of the task of discerning an identity and a role for ourselves in a globalized world. As Anglicans, if we are to be a Communion in mission, we ought to think of ourselves as Christians who have a particular theological and religious heritage rather than “imitating an English way of being the Church.”</p>
<p>Our inheritance offers us “a church model to work with.” This model is about our presence in society. Out of the theological tradition of Anglicanism emerges a church model that gives the Incarnation its rightful place. This model of Church surely springs out of the historical experience of English Christianity but is by no means limited to the English experience. In this Anglican tradition, it is the most essential way by which we can express the bountiful mercy of God.</p>
<p>Out of this model arise six fundamental issues that Anglicans have to address during the next 20 years.</p>
<p><strong>1. Legacy from the past</strong> — Our origin is based as a church in the faith once given to the saints. It is therefore an imperative to build this apostolic succession in a way that highlights the priorities of justice, mutual respect, harmonious and pacific co-existence in a pluralistic society, the kingdom of God on Earth, the redistribution of resources and the alleviation of poverty, and the eradication of hatred, violence, and disease. We are called to make these notions concrete realities. It is not for us to devote ourselves to the consolidation of irrelevant memories. There should be an urge for creativity and development.</p>
<p><strong>2. Sustainable liturgy</strong> — One of the most important aspects of our life together is our liturgical life. The Book of Common Prayer of 1662, as a vehicle of liturgy, has given to Anglicanism a most invaluable and significant basis. It has been a criterion for expressing and sustaining a sound doctrine in faith. It has also conveyed a symbol of unity. Our liturgy attracts many non-Anglicans. But it is time in our quest for Communion in mission to see how best we can translate it into our daily lives in the world. We have to build up spaces for imaginative and creative religious experiences, liturgy that can nurture our world in need of unity within diversity. Creativity is an essential element in a liturgical renewal that can speak to the souls of people in particular contexts.</p>
<p><strong>3. Intense sensitivity to mission</strong> — There is no time to waste in finding models for missions. We have to discern what God wants of us. As Bishop Sehon Goodridge wrote in <em>By Word and Deed</em>:</p>
<p style="margin-left: 40px;">It is the Spirit that regenerates, liberates and empowers for total ministry and mission. When we are hemmed in by various strictures and structures the Spirit modifies and reorientates our lives that we may have new horizons and new paths. We have a new awareness of the Spirit who stimulates and strengthens us, who makes us grow to maturity and emboldens us to witness. When this is experienced in the local Church, the Church-in-mission is realised.</p>
<p>One of the greatest challenges that we face as Anglican Christians in this postmodern and globalized world is how to enhance the quality of our Christian calling in society. A sense of direction will be given for a strategy in mission if it is set about in conditions of the continuity with humanity that is implied in the doctrine of the Incarnation. In our strategy for mission, our provinces are to be encouraged to be concerned and fully engaged in the society of which they are part. They must be disposed to take seriously their civic and political duties. We cannot afford to be content only with a concern for our own limited ecclesiastical affairs. As Archbishop Trevor Huddleston wrote in a synodical charge:</p>
<p style="margin-left: 40px;">Christians are called to be “The Salt to the World”: and the purpose of salt is to preserve meat from going rotten, not to preserve itself. So the Church’s role is to preserve society: not to withdraw from it. The fact that Anglicans are such a small minority in many parts of the world cannot excuse them from this responsibility.</p>
<p>We must carry the deep conviction of who we are and what we can be for the universal Church as well as for our respective societies. We have a duty to the world as stewards of God. Through our integrity, we will be able to proclaim the true face of Christ to the world. The future will not be easy but the richness of our tradition and its ability to federate different schools of thought is a sure source of hope and opportunity. This is not utopian hope but a hope that takes God as its foundation — a God who provides for us in the midst of change and tribulation. To be a Communion in mission, we have to envisage a Church without walls.</p>
<p><strong>4</strong>. <strong>Lay vocation</strong> — The mission with which God has entrusted his Church is not the exclusive business of bishop and clergy. Whether we are ordained or not, we are called to work together, each according to our individual calling, to bear witness to the spirit of unity that Christ’s mission is spreading throughout the world. We are all little more than instruments, which the Church can use and organize in a coherent way to achieve Christ’s mission in the lives of men and women in today’s world. Thus, the mission that Jesus Christ has entrusted to his Church is the responsibility of all those who have been baptized, each according to their respective role and calling. In 1988, Pope John Paul II published <em>Christifideles laici</em>, in which he elaborates on the calling of the laity:</p>
<p style="margin-left: 40px;">In giving a response to the question who are the lay faithful, the Second Vatican Council opened itself to a decidedly positive vision and displayed a basic intention of asserting the full belonging of the lay faithful to the Church and to its mystery. At the same time it insisted on the unique character of their vocation, which is, in a special way, to seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and ordering them according to the plan of God. Vocation of the lay faithful to holiness implies that life according to the Spirit expresses itself in a particular way in their involvement in temporal affairs and in their participation in earthly activities.</p>
<p>And 25 years earlier that is precisely what the Toronto Congress sought to model! It is good to note that, along with this Anglican insight, the pope affirms what Saint Paul affirmed: God calls all Christians. When we consider the central importance of the people of God, the <em>laos</em>, they are the ones whose vocation is engagement in the realities of social life. The focus is not on bishop or clergy but on the responsibility we share, a united commitment for transformation. We need to define a theological curriculum that declares unambiguously that we start from revelation, a sense of the prevenient presence of God in the institutions of the society we belong to and out of which it is possible to identify the theology of God to which we can all assent. It is only then that the trinitarian character of God’s existence will prove to be most useful.</p>
<p><strong>5. Overcoming our fear of evangelism — </strong>Mission loses of its authenticity without evangelism. This aspect cannot be marginalized in the life and the identity of the Church. It exists for all Christians, for every ministry and for every function within the Church. Even though mission means more than just evangelism, mission without evangelism is incomplete. Too often, we have been afraid to be faithful to the imperatives of the mandate from Jesus Christ. Our Anglican integrity demands that we hold ourselves accountable to our duty as Christians to declare our faith, in season and out of season. Bringing in new believers gives rise to new experiences and thus new gifts to the life of the Church. The Church, in return, is challenged to engage in theological reflection and public witness.</p>
<p><strong>6</strong>. <strong>Interfaith dialogue — </strong>The example of Mauritius is precious. It is a small nation, unheard of by many, with few natural resources. What it does have, however, is the deep-rooted respect of its inhabitants for a diversity of beliefs. There are occasional frictions and disgruntlements. However, for the past 45 years of independent life, the Mauritian nation has succeeded in embracing its internal differences and using them as a force for development. In this, it has emulated no one. The strength of this unity shows that it comes from humanity’s inherent thirst for oneness. In the words of M.M Thomes, a lay theologian, “Mission is Humanisation.” Do not believe those who say that people are meant for division. As husband and wife are one, and as we are one with God, our Anglican Communion is our very strength.</p>
<p>We are a people called by God to be his servants, his disciples. May he bless us as we embark on the reformation arising from the divine opportunity that the present crisis offers us. May he guide us in our quest, illuminate our understanding, and inspire our teaching for his honor and glory.</p>
<p><em>The Most Rev. Ian Ernest is archbishop of the Province of the Indian Ocean and Bishop of Mauritius, and a member of the Living Church Foundation.</em></p>
<p><em><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">Image of Ian Ernest by Sue Careless</span></em></p>
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<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>By Josiah Idowu Fearon</p>
<p>When I served on the Lambeth Commission that produced <em>The Windsor Report</em>, one of my fellow one of the commission members asked a formative question: <em>Who are you writing for?</em> This question jolted us all. We debated, discussed, and discovered finally that within the Anglican Communion we have three distinctive groups: conservatives, liberals, and a large group of liberals and conservatives (an estimated 70%) who want to get on as a family in spite of their theological and ecclesiological differences I assume most of us at this Conference are within the 70 percent bracket — those who are working for our family to focus on kingdom principles and to be prophetic in the different parts of God’s world where we have been planted.</p>
<p>Unfortunately the 15 percent of people on each side of this center are bent on forcing their theological and ecclesiological positions on the Communion. This, to my understanding, is the Achilles heel’ of our Communion.</p>
<p>In his address “‘Holding Fast and Holding On’: The Instruments of the Anglican Communion,” Lord George Carey reminds us: “The Anglican instruments of Unity have arisen primarily out of conflict and a desire to be true to our ecumenical goals.” Lord Ramsey reminds us that our main goal is to “unite the Church of Christ.” These Instruments of Unity — the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council, and the Primates’ Meeting — need to be re-evaluated in the light of the problems we face today.</p>
<p><strong>The Archbishop of Canterbury</strong><br />Anglicans have insisted on certain things, what we believe to be basic Catholic facts and principles: the Scriptures, the sacraments of salvation (Baptism and Eucharist), the Creeds, and apostolic ministry embodied in the historic episcopate. Given those basic facts and principles, Anglicans seem ready to be in communion with other Christians and create united churches with them (see Michael Ramsey, <em>The Anglican Spirit</em>, p. 125). The Archbishop of Canterbury represents the Communion in these ecumenical contacts and roles.</p>
<p>The Archbishop of Canterbury is our symbol of unity, and this office should and will remain, but why? Listen to Lord Ramsey:</p>
<p style="margin-left:.25in;">the very term “Anglicanism” is one produced by the situation of sad Christian disunity and disappearance of Christian disunity might well mean the disappearance of the word “Anglicanism.” Until that happens, we believe that God has given us real work to do, and “Anglicanism” describes that work (pp. 125-26).</p>
<p>The Archbishop of Canterbury represents this movement, and this instrument therefore is an essential, at least until the entire Church becomes one. “We are going to devote ourselves to our mission completely, not by viewing Anglicanism as an end in itself, but as a fragment of the One Holy Catholic Church of Christ” (Ramsey, p. 126).</p>
<p>If the Archbishop of Canterbury matters in the missions of Anglicanism, does it need revamping? This instrument is very relevant, as Lord Carey said from his experience in that office. Here are some of the vital functions that make this instrument relevant:</p>
<ul><li>The Archbishop has direct power to invite or withhold invitation to the Lambeth Conference.</li>
<li>The Archbishop has a personal ministry of recognizing with whom he is in Communion, even though the Anglican Consultative Council deals with legislative processes.</li>
<li>The Archbishop by his office has a goal and a vision for the Communion. In the words of Lord Carey, “The Communion may be, to quote the familiar mantra of the Communion, Episcopally led and synodically governed.” But this leadership can only be conducted with the agreement of the Communion and its instruments.</li>
<li>In certain final cases only an Archbishop of Canterbury can intervene, such as in Lord Carey’s intervening amid Rwanda’s genocide.</li>
<li>The Archbishop, even as <em>Primus</em> <em>inter</em> <em>pares</em>, is president of the Anglican Communion in that he presides over each of the other Instruments of Unity.</li>
<li>In order to make this instrument more effective and relevant to the Communion today, I make two proposals:</li>
<li>In tenor with the gospel principle of persuasion, the ABC needs to consult annually with the primates and some senior bishops and archbishops within the Communion.</li>
<li>In consultation with primates and senior bishops from some provinces, the Archbishop should appoint liaison officers who keep his office well informed of situations from their parts of the Communion.</li>
</ul><p>Although Archbishops of Canterbury have resisted a patriarchal or papal role within the Communion’s affairs, they have a real influence unlike that of any other primate or archbishop.</p>
<p>Lord Carey has said, “They can steer, push, and lead, but they can’t rule.” African bishops and archbishops find this “can’t rule” concept difficult. This, from my limited experience, is at the root of a significant number within the conservative 15% from Africa who think the office of the Archbishop is not effective enough and so would want to take over the Communion. The ecclesiology and theology of most African Anglicans are built around “autocracy.” For a number of few but loud African archbishops, bishops, and primates, the Archbishop should “rule” and not only “steer, push, and lead.” Thus in this instrument lies what I am afraid could be described as a clash of cultures.</p>
<p>The Archbishop of Canterbury has come to be known as a ‘focus of unity” rather than an “instrument of unity.” What is the intention of those who made this change, and what implications does it have for the leadership role of the Archbishop?</p>
<p><strong>The Lambeth Conference</strong><br />Let us remember that this instrument came into being as a result of the Bishop John Colenso crisis in 1867. Since 1998 this instrument has come under severe criticism because it does not represent clergy and laity. The invitation to the Lambeth Conference of 1897 was sent out by Archbishop Edward White Benson before his death in 1896. Archbishop Frederick Temple, who succeeded him, kept faith with the invitation. Archbishop Benson wanted the Lambeth Conference to take decisions on the organization of the Anglican Communion. He then made proposals for committees to work on the following: a “central consultative body,” a “tribunal of reference,” and the “position and functions of the Lambeth Conference.” American bishops became suspicious and were vehemently opposed to any attempt to establish any authoritative relation to the see of Canterbury.</p>
<p>The Committee on the Organization of the Anglican Communion recommended the establishment of a “tribunal of reference” to review questions submitted by the bishops of the Church of England and colonial and missionary Churches. This tribunal, the committee said, should be presided over by the archbishops of Canterbury and York, and comprise the bishops of London, Durham, and Winchester, and representatives of each province.</p>
<p>There was also a hint that the Archbishop of Canterbury should assume the title “patriarch” of the Anglican Communion. Again, American bishops opposed any idea of a Canterbury patriarchate, and to the recommendation of the tribunal of reference, which was not adopted. Instead, a Central Consultative Council, as an advisory body, was approved, and Archbishop Temple established it. The American bishops were suspicious even of this. It is worth noting that even at this early stage the American bishops seemed to have determined that the purpose of Lambeth Conference should continue to be for talk and consultation and not for decisions or to exercise authority on behalf of the whole Communion.</p>
<p>Looking back, that was the initial intention of what this instrument was set up to achieve, though it was the Colenso affair that forced the first Lambeth Conference to hold. By Lambeth in 2008 we had weathered the storm for more than 100 years. As assessed by Professor Ephraim Radner, the last Lambeth Conference did not give an impression to the world of a united family called the Anglican Communion. Should the Lambeth Conference continue to be for talk and consultation and not for decisions or exercising authority on behalf of the whole Communion?</p>
<p>Decisions were not allowed at the Lambeth Conference of 2008, and it is my humble submission that that decision was very unfortunate. That was an opportune time for the proposed Anglican Covenant to be debated and some decisions taken, even if the controversial Section 4 were rejected.</p>
<p>My submission is that this Instrument of Unity still matters and therefore it is my submission that we urgently set up a commission to have a second look at the intentions of Archbishop Benson and see how we could adapt them to the 21st century.</p>
<p><strong>The Anglican Consultative Council</strong><br />The ACC emanated from the 1968 Lambeth Conference. The Rev. Canon Colin Craston described the main reason for the evolution of this instrument: “Changes in the relationships between the Churches of the Anglican Communion and organizations convinced the Lambeth fathers that a new pattern of regular consultation was now necessary, in which ‘Anglicans may fulfill their common inter-Anglican and ecumenical responsibilities in promoting <em>unity,</em> <em>renewal</em> and <em>mission</em> of Christ’s Church’” (Lambeth Conference Report, 1968, p. 145).</p>
<p>Does this instrument matter in the Communion today? Speaking as an African Anglican bishop, and having sounded the opinions of Africans, Asians, and Arab colleagues, it is my opinion that for this instrument to carry the Church Fathers along in its ecumenical responsibilities in promoting the unity, renewal and mission of Christ’s Church, two changes need to be given an urgent consideration:</p>
<ul><li>The council needs to be headed by an experienced bishop. When Bishop George Selwyn was appointed “corresponding secretary” of the Anglican Communion in 1867, the fact that he was a bishop made relationships much easier. He related to other bishops as colleagues and they were able to discuss matters as Church Fathers. Today, for a General Secretary to write letters of instruction to a diocesan bishop tastes sour.</li>
<li>The council needs to come directly under the oversight of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who already chairs the meetings. The General Secretary should be responsible to the Archbishop and not be understood as the executive running the entire Communion. This will create a better rapprochement between the Archbishop and the Primates’ Meetings, and make planning for the Lambeth Conference an ongoing activity.</li>
</ul><p>This instrument is a very important one in the search for authority within the Communion. With these proposals, the three-fold order inherited from the early Church is retained. The council, chaired by the Archbishop and led by a staff in episcopal order with clergy and lay representatives, would easily see its decisions endorsed by the various provinces of the Communion. To increase the credibility of the council, provinces should be encouraged to see that their representatives truly represent the women and men in the pews representing the two main traditions, conservative and liberal, that comprise the Communion.</p>
<p><strong>The Primates’ Meeting</strong><br />The youngest of the instruments first met in 1979 and in recent years it took the lead in trying to stop the crisis that has almost succeeded in tearing the communion apart. The achievements of this instrument have been carefully enumerated by Professor Radner in his essay, “Can the Instruments of Unity Be Repaired?”:</p>
<ul><li>It provided articulate, clear, and seemingly consensual directives.</li>
<li>With the Archbishop of Canterbury, it commissioned the Lambeth Commission that produced The Windsor Report.</li>
<li>It attempted to carry through with a common vision for a disciplined reordering of global ecclesial relations.</li>
</ul><p>However, in the words of Lord Carey, “the one Instrument of Unity that seems to have been emerging into a position of strength in recent decades is vigorously resisted by the ACC which feels threatened by it while certain Provinces — notably in North America — desiring total autonomy theologically from Communion, while at the same time imposing total autocracy within their boundaries.”</p>
<p>Because we are Anglicans and Episcopalians we need not be hesitant or embarrassed about empowering our primates in the Church to have real and special authority at Communion levels. For this reason I strongly support this instrument of unity with these recommendations:</p>
<ul><li>That each Primate coming to the Primates’ Meeting attends in the company of two other senior bishops who specialize in some specific areas relevant to the discussion. I propose two representatives so as to have both liberal and conservative opinions expressed during the discussions.</li>
<li>That recommendations from Primates’ Meetings should be taken by the Archbishop to the ACC for input from the other two segments that make up the Communion. This reconstituted ACC would act as a clearinghouse.</li>
<li>This enlarged Primates’ Meeting should be able to recommend decisions to the entire Communion for implementation at each provincial level.</li>
</ul><p><strong>Conclusion</strong><br />I propose that, because the gospel is not coercive but persuasive, our structure should adopt this kingdom principle. This calls for patience on the side of the various theological positions within the Communion, especially extreme liberals and extreme conservatives. May I draw our attention to the debate on polygamy and full membership of the Communion, which was first brought to the 1888 Lambeth Conference. A Communion position was not finally arrived at until Lambeth 1988 — 100 years! What a lesson in patience!</p>
<p>Both extreme conservatives and extreme liberals have contributed to the incapacitation of the Instruments of Unity. Liberals have been disobedient in carrying out agreed decisions while conservatives have been too arrogant in their choice of words and actions. There is therefore a need for repentance and the desire to accept the truth that, whether conservative or liberal, we belong to one family and there is the need to follow the biblical principle of humility.</p>
<p>I do share the concern of Bishop Stephen Sykes that in the midst of this heat on the Communion both sides will think the reform of the structures is just a front for this or that solution to the problem. He counsels: “We have to come to some understanding on the substance of the matter and then discuss the structure, i.e., how the instruments could be used in keeping the cohesion that we very much desire.”</p>
<p>I support the idea put forward by Radner and Christopher Seitz of promoting spiritual communion: “The present dispute suggests that there isn’t much spiritual communion within the church. At worst, it looks as if there are two hostile traditions cohabiting in one institution.” Are Anglicans from whatever group ready to be members of the church that includes people opposed to their opinion?</p>
<p>I do not share the opinion of many that the Anglican Instruments of Unity have collapsed and that none of them works anymore. When I was growing up as a boy-soldier in the early 1960s, my commandant at the Nigerian Military School, Zaria, was used to saying to us during our map-reading exercises: “Boys, if you are not sure of where you are heading, at least remember where you are coming from.” The middle group of 70 percent of the Communion are being pulled by the 15 percent extreme conservatives and 15 percent extreme liberals to a destination we do not know. We have an enviable history; we have a mission and a vision as Anglicans. Both extreme groups need to be reminded that mere radicalism cannot produce unity in the truth of Christ, but a watered-down version of Christianity (Ramsey, p. 124).</p>
<p>Those of us in the 70 percent need to recover a theological coherence, a recovery that is true to our own appeal to Scripture, tradition, and reason, an Anglican way that blends the givenness of God’s revelation and the exploration of its meaning in any age (Ramsey, p.124). I hope these recommendations will help us give a new life to these Instruments of Unity, because they matter. In the words of Lord Carey, “the Anglican Communion has to be led and the Communion has to struggle to work as a united body.”</p>
<p><em>The Rt. Rev. Josiah Idowu Fearon is Bishop of Kaduna, Nigeria.</em></p>
<p><em>Image of Josiah Idowu Fearon by Sue Careless</em></p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/anglican-congress-1963" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Anglican Congress 1963</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/pan-anglican-congress" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">pan-Anglican Congress</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/toronto-congress" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Toronto Congress</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/archbishop-canterbury-0" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Archbishop of Canterbury</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-categories-top field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Categories:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/lead-story" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Lead Story</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/essays-reviews" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Essays &amp; Reviews</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Features</a></div></div></div>Fri, 11 Oct 2013 15:37:29 +0000Web Editor1131 at http://www.livingchurch.orgSupranational Ecclesiologyhttp://www.livingchurch.org/supranational-ecclesiology
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">By Ephraim Radner</span></p>
<p>History is not made up of revolutions, sudden wrenchings into new territory. It is made up of often subtle shifts built up over the long term. The present reality is always only the sum of the past. And the future can only emerge from within that past. In a way, there are no such things as “revolutions.” This is obvious only as we cast our eyes over the vast landscape of time, the <em>longue durée, </em>as the French say. Russia, China, even France: upheaval tends to settle down to previous structures, often little changed, though now clothed in new forms. Not that there are not drastic effects to so-called revolutions. But these effects are almost always short-lived and to that extent destructive — they make “life short.” If there <em>are</em> “real” revolutions, they are the often unexpected results of things that make “life long” — agriculture, new sources of nourishment, peace, sanitary measures, the sudden reduction of infant mortality in the early 20th century and so on. And the effects of these things do indeed show themselves only over time.</p>
<p>It’s worth thinking about this when it comes to the Church as well. For the Church has been and is filled with would-be revolutionaries of various kinds, almost all doomed to being swept away and under by the tides of the slow movement of deeper forces.</p>
<p>The Toronto Congress of 1963 needs to be understood in these terms. What was it? — 1,000 delegates, plus spouses, organizers, observers, 250 journalists — a total of about 2,000. And more than 16,000 came to the opening service and thousands to subsequent gatherings at Maple Leaf Gardens, like the Mass Gathering of Missionary Witness (cf. Whitely). Out of this gathering came a “manifesto” called “Mutual Responsibility and Interdependence in the Body of Christ,” which proposed several principles of interaction among the churches of the Anglican Communion. The hopes and ballyhoos abounded, so we are told: the Toronto Congress was a “turning point” (Stephen Bayne), “radical change in the whole structure of Anglicanism,” “point of no return” (Jesse Zink), a new moment in the “history of consciousness” (obviously an American said this).</p>
<p>At the time, it should be noted, there were also doubts expressed at the Congress. The talks were of abysmal quality (Eugene Fairweather); the discussions were confused; the MRI plan itself vague. Subsequently, the Congress and its MRI document have been called a “failure.” The conference and manifesto were really, some have said, but the continuance by new means of Western domination and neo-colonialism within the Communion (Danaher), out of touch with the “new” realities of the world; or again, MRI gave birth only to fake “partnerships” of money-grubbing have-nots, in the face of disdainful “haves”; or to new bureaucracies — the Communion Office and its many commissions — run by unaccountable and unrepresentative “elites.” And so on. Even at the conference, someone raised the spectre of “Parkinson’s Law” being put into effect: useless work growing to fit the newly minted workers of the Communion’s new office.</p>
<p>So: success of failure? The Toronto Congress was neither. It was, rather, the well-profiled emergence of an already entrenched direction, a direction of ecclesial life taken within a continuous course of developing hope, challenge … and mission. And to see this is simply to see where God is <em>still </em>pressing us.</p>
<p>What happened at the Congress? Ten days of talks and discussions and worship, preceded by several meetings in Huron by representative bishops of the Communion and mission leaders, succeeded by World Council of Churches meetings. This was the third Pan-Anglican Congress in our history: gatherings of Anglican leaders, clergy and lay, from around the world, for mutual consultation and encouragement. There had been one in London in 1908, another in Minneapolis in 1954, and now in Toronto. These had no legislative authority, but nonetheless had been officially encouraged by the Lambeth Conferences.</p>
<p>The Congress itself was simply a large gathering to talk about the Anglican Communion, with set speakers, discussion groups, and worship. These were framed according to the tag of “frontiers” in the Church’s “mission” and “action.” There were talks on the “religious frontiers,” “political frontiers,” “cultural frontiers,” and, in this context, about training, action, and vocation. In the middle of the conference was a long set of presentations on the missionary witness of the church, with speakers offering snapshots from different parts of the world.</p>
<p>It was as a warm up to this “missionary interlude” in the middle of the conference that “Mutual Responsibility and Interdependence in the Body of Christ” was unveiled. It was August 17, in an afternoon gathering in the Canadian Room of the Royal York Hotel, and Donald Coggan, the Archbishop of York (and former professor at Wycliffe College) was the spokesman. The MRI document, a few pages long, is not very interesting, to be honest. It speaks of mission, unity, obedience, and the need to help one another in phrases that are unimaginative and pat. The bulk of the document, however, is devoted to outlining concrete areas where such partnership is called for: a $15 million fund for training, church construction, and new dioceses; a call for new vocations, or “manpower,” for the church’s work around the world; the press for new interchurch “consultation,” and a few general suggestions for institutionalizing this; an exhortation for each church of the Communion to order its priorities according to missionary partnership; and finally, a general demand for “mature” and “non-sentimental” rethinking of the “nature of the Anglican Communion” as a “united” missionary “body”: “Mission is not the kindness of the lucky to the unlucky; it is mutual, united obedience to the one God whose mission it is. The form of the church must reflect that” (p. 121).</p>
<p>But note the enormous weight placed on practical engagement. The very phrase “Mutual Interdependence and Responsibility” held little special theological meaning. Its origins lie in 19th-century insurance and contract law, and migrated to social anthropology and, by the mid-20th century, international relations. Anglican bishops and others — including the Mennonite World Conference held in Kitchener the year before the Toronto Congress — had long used terms like “partnership” and “mutuality” to speak of proper ecclesial relationships, and others, as recently as the Diocese of Connecticut in 2012, have simply used the phrase to underline the financial responsibilities of parish assessments. MRI, that is, is a legal-social-financial category, whose concrete meanings tend towards concrete actions, rather than general attitudes.</p>
<p>So was all this earth-shattering? Not really. But it <em>was</em> deeply important, precisely because it tried to <em>concretize</em> an underlying orientation of purpose that had been long-standing. To this I turn.</p>
<p>The first thing to be said is that the Toronto Congress’s overriding tone was characterized by two qualities: crisis and mission. Indeed, we can call the peculiar tenor of the Congress one of “crisis missiology.” The word “crisis” was struck from the opening talk of Archbishop Ramsey, and repeated by him at the close. Over and over, speakers rose to address the grave threats hovering over both world and church: war itself in many places, the threat of nuclear devastation, political upheaval including Communism and revolution, and the struggles over racial justice in America and elsewhere; the vast numbers of refugees flowing out of these conflicts; poverty and hunger at staggering levels; the “resurgence” of various non-Christian religions, including Islam. Added to this, on an ecclesial and cultural level, was the sense of secularism’s encroaching power, fanning widespread materialist and soulless technological assumptions, moral chaos, and threats to family cohesion.</p>
<p>It is important to stress this underlying sensibility. Confidence was in short supply at the Congress, and all the talk about the “disappearance of the Anglican Communion,” although it had its origins in issues of church unity, was tinged also with enormous, and very concrete fears. In this context, MRI was a <em>plea </em>and a <em>prayer</em>, not a strategy, let alone a devious if ineffective plot.</p>
<p>Furthermore, the context of crisis colors the well-worn missionary thrust that had characterized Anglican Communion discussions from the start. For “Mission” was at the heart of this conference, as it had been at every other Anglican Congress. At the center of the program was a “mass meeting of missionary witness” held at Maple Leaf Gardens, with thousands in attendance, including addresses from India, Malaya, and Fiji. MRI stated that its purpose was to further “mission as our common task,” and Stephen Bayne, the Communion’s first Executive Officer, who had labored indefatigably to get leaders to think about the Communion, himself stressed that it was meant to facilitate “planting” the Christian Church “in every place” of the world (<em>Anglican Congress 1963</em>, edited by Eugene Fairweather, p. 192). The plea and the prayer, then, of MRI had to do with the urgent, perhaps even desperate, sense of <em>missionary</em> thirst, tested by the challenges of overwhelming crisis: how to respond concretely so that Jesus Christ’s overcoming of the powers of evil is visible and the Gospel touches the entire world? This <em>was</em> a powerful call.</p>
<p>I would add two further themes that emerge — unrehearsed — in the conference. The first is the diversification of the Communion, reflecting the world’s felt global life: cultural and political diversity was bursting forth on the consciousness and decision-making demands of governments, and the term “international” had taken on a new and burdensome meaning. Anglicanism had for a long time, after all, stressed the integrity of national cultures and polities. And we should note this was clearly being <em>seen. </em>At Lambeth 1948, there were, by my count, nine non-Western bishops and only one African. At Minneapolis in 1954, there were 12 native bishops, and now, from Africa, Islam was discussed with some concern. In Toronto, there were more than 25 non-Western indigenous bishops, and more than 161 non-Western delegates. It was a striking and accelerating drift, and one whose outcome we all know today: in 1998, 364 non-Anglo-American bishops came to Lambeth, almost half the total number. And at the Toronto Congress their voices were heard, and some, like Bishop John Sadiq of Nagpur, India, took prominent roles in the conference. But at the conference we also hear repeated notes of tension between the need to acknowledge and uphold this diversity and the now dangerous demands of proliferated and vying peoples, among which, somehow, the Church was to press for the Gospel. The Communion, alas, has simply mirrored the development of this fear into reality, as regional and cultural-economic differences have become dominant in our conflicts.</p>
<p>The second subtheme that flew into full view in MRI, was the issue of a lack of resources for mission itself: for training, education, schooling, hospitals, this and that. Churches needed to <em>help</em> one another. For Ramsey, this fact pointed to the simple “law of sacrifice” in St. Paul’s terms: “a church which lives by itself will die by itself” (<em>Anglican Congress 1963</em>, pp. 124-25), he famously said. Or, in Japanese Bishop Goto’s phrase: a “new era” of “common life” was being inaugurated, yes, even financially: the “dreary goal of autonomy and self-support” is now past (p. 125)!</p>
<p>But let us be clear: not only were the “crises” themselves long in the making; the concerns that crisis seemed to press to the fore were actually always central to the Anglican Communion. In this sense, the Toronto Congress simply shone a light on a Communion that was already well-formed in its commitments, challenges, and orientations.</p>
<p>The Toronto Congress, I have intimated, emerged as the tip of an iceberg from the depths of something much deeper and long-standing. What exactly? In the first place, and fundamentally, the reality that the Anglican “Communion,” simply as a concept, was primarily missionary in its origins and meaning. The idea of an “Anglican Church” with a peculiar “communion” derives from the 17th century and then took shape through the self-conscious missionary movement of the Church of England into America, and later elsewhere. By the early 19th century, the notion of “Anglican <em>churches</em>” in the plural — not just the Church of England — was well-founded, and by the mid-19th-century, as is well known, the actual phrase “Anglican Communion” emerges from a very specific missionary context: the Jubilee Anniversary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, the SPG, which had been a leader, with all its foibles, in the Anglican spread of the gospel. There <em>is</em> a “communion” of Anglican “churches,” observers noted, precisely as it is the embodied expression of the missionary thrust of Anglican<em>s</em> to plant the gospel in all places.</p>
<p>Everything about a “communion” derived from this missionary thrust. Talks about a Lambeth Conference and so on in the 1850s derived from this, even before worries over Colenso and the rest; and once these conferences took hold, they devoted themselves mainly to missionary concerns. The first 1908 Pan-Anglican Conference was put together by the Mission Boards of York and Canterbury. And Lambeth itself worked synergistically and often through overlapping personnel with the long string of world missionary conferences that began in the late 19th century — London’s Anglican missionary conference in 1894, Edinburgh in 1914, Jerusalem in 1928, and Tamburam in 1938. At every step of the Communion’s life, it was the world missionary impetus that upheld it, justified it, called it forward. We must never, ever forget that.</p>
<p>So, the Toronto Congress was simply lifting its head up to be seen, in all of its world concerns, from this continuous movement of missionary vision. It did so, however, under new pressures. Until about 1950, almost all Anglican bishops outside of America and a few other places were British, even in the missionary areas, and all had gone to the same public schools and same (two) universities, following the same course of studies. These studies, furthermore, were mostly governed by the ancient classics, not by theology at all, other than the Greek New Testament and the formularies. What kept these bishops together, then — evangelical, high, and low, in England, India, and Africa — was a common social and educational outlook, and the default theological foundation that upheld this church that was basically without leaders trained in academic theology: the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. We cannot underestimate the cohesive value of this homogeneity, as well as the weight it placed on a certain fundamental theological outlook.</p>
<p>But by 1963, this had begun to crack, obviously: bishops around the world were no longer all British or American; local seminaries were now training more and more clergy, including bishops. By 1967, the short-lived experience of a Communion-wide theological college, St. Augustine’s College in Canterbury, had folded for lack of support. And the prayer book itself was fading as a means of unity, as Bayne himself admitted, and as, at Lambeth 1948, an important report had expressly worried. The result was that the Toronto Congress’s great call, emerging, as I have argued, from a consistent missionary energy, became mired in the incapacity to find personal and structural cohesion. Bayne’s “improvisations,” as he called the new configurations of the Communion Office, Anglican Consultative Council and its commissions, proved inadequate, and their missionary initiatives — Partners in Mission, Mission consultations, now Indaba — quickly slipped into the perceived irrelevant efforts of a few that masked highly centrifugal forces. Most startling and disorienting, however, was the withering of a missionary center within the now Minority Church of the West, that came into increasing tension with the Global South’s Majority churches’ evangelistic energies, which proved far more in synch with the long current of the Communion’s historical life.</p>
<p>Given that the Anglican Communion’s own genetic character was bound to evangelistic mission, the Communion’s structures have been pressing to escape the improvisatory bonds that Bayne left us with. That is, in part, the source of our present conflict, and where we are today: “Mutual Responsibility and Interdependence in the Body of Christ” in search of theologically responsible ecclesial structures, and the Communion’s missionary bloodstream seeking new vessels through which to renew the body as a whole.</p>
<p>In this light let me suggest several possible new channels of communion:</p>
<p>First, diversity requires a clearer mode of mutual engagement. MRI <em>was</em> significant, because it put this reality and call squarely on the table. And we have seen its demand: not “partnership” in some kind of contractual mode, but “mutual subjection” in the body of Christ, as Paul speaks of it in Ephesians 5:21. That presses towards an ecclesiology that is more than the sum of its national parts, indeed that is explicitly “supranational” — something Bayne still could not countenance. We need “supranational” structures. MRI, in its deep sense, implies that the churches of England and of Canada and of Nigeria and of Ecuador and of the U.S. are not “whole” as they stand and act alone; they are whole only as they subject themselves to one another, in the form of spousal life, as Paul writes. We need to look at the ways that “sovereignty” can creatively and responsibly be broken down. Political scientists and legal scholars and policy-makers have been doing this, in the wake of things like the European Union, Kyoto, human rights law, and so on (see Anne-Marie Slaughter’s work). The Church, and the Anglican Communion of course, is not a political entity, though many of its decision-making forms function politically. But churches, we can be sure, are <em>not</em> “sovereign states,” and this whole idea that we are needs to be thrown away. Speaking personally, the Covenant is still the most creative means we have on the table in this direction. And I will argue this with anybody.</p>
<p>Second, it is true that a static prayer book cannot become a substitute for the revelation of Scripture and the priority of the gospel. But the prayer book’s scriptural structure, its formative application, and its embedded provision of the Church’s “traditions” are essential to Anglicanism’s missionary life. Prayer book revision has been driven by local incoherence. This is a central reality that must be engaged now, and not later. But working this out will require that the political issue be pursued first.</p>
<p>Finally, the missionary character of communion cannot be let go. It must inform both church politics and the prayer book, even as its own form must be shaped by them also. This is the deepest lesson of looking at the substance of the Toronto Congress and MRI. And it is why we are not political nations, but the body of Christ with a gospel to proclaim and share. Every decision about political structure and doctrinal form must be subordinate to this reality of Christ’s mission within and as his own body to peoples and a world that must be drawn into his embrace.</p>
<p>The Toronto Congress was not a revolution, clearly. Nor should anyone have hoped it to be such. But that also means that our approach to the present and future cannot escape the Toronto Congress and, with wisdom, has to incorporate it consciously or — as has been the case — we are imprisoned in the attempt to escape it somehow, even while its informing realities eat away at us. I will end with this: the Toronto Congress was not a revolution so much as a “destiny” — a “fact” that embodied and embodies “facts” that are simply given. It is a destiny that is our own, one in which we move today. But “destiny,” in scriptural terms, is lived either as judgment or mercy. And if mercy, in this case, then we are called to frame our Communion’s life in a way that is faithful to those long-standing evangelical gifts through which God has established this common life in the first place. They are not for tossing overboard, but for carrying through.</p>
<p><em>The Rev. Ephraim Radner is professor of historical theology at Wycliffe College, Toronto, and a member of the Living Church Foundation.</em></p>
<p><em>Image of Ephraim Radner by Sue Careless</em></p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/anglican-congress-1963" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Anglican Congress 1963</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/pan-anglican-congress" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">pan-Anglican Congress</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/toronto-congress" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Toronto Congress</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-categories-top field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Categories:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/lead-story" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Lead Story</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/essays-reviews" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Essays &amp; Reviews</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Features</a></div></div></div>Fri, 11 Oct 2013 11:01:14 +0000Web Editor1130 at http://www.livingchurch.orgSteps toward Global Unityhttp://www.livingchurch.org/steps-toward-global-unity
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><span style="font-variant: small-caps;">Eyewitness</span></p>
<p>By David Ney</p>
<p>While it would be unfair to dub the third Pan-Anglican Congress held in Toronto in 1963 Anglicanism’s version of Vatican II, it is hard to ignore the parallels. Toronto 1963 was organized by church leaders startled by the rapid cultural, political, economic, and religious changes that seemed to be revolutionizing the postwar era. They were eager to organize church leaders and to act with courage, creativity, and zeal. They produced a manifesto that they hoped would be Anglicanism’s answer to the new world context: “Mutual Responsibility and Interdependence in the Body of Christ” (MRI). Toronto 1963 was a big deal, but it has been all but forgotten.</p>
<p>Back to the Anglican Future, a conference held September 18 at Wycliffe College and St. Paul’s Bloor Anglican Church in Toronto, was a noteworthy if modest step toward rectifying this problem of historical amnesia. The organizers were guided by what might be described as the principle of <em>ressourcement</em>. Like the architects of Vatican II, their desire was to look backwards in order to move forwards, to draw upon the resources of the past in order to address contemporary challenges creatively. And it is clear that this approach to Toronto 1963 readily bears fruit.</p>
<p>This being said, the speakers were circumspect in their assessments of the Pan-Anglican Congress and its manifesto. The Rt. Rev. Stephen Andrews, Bishop of Algoma, said they were an important expression of emerging postcolonial ideas about missionary activity, including equality, partnership, and reciprocity. He also argued that they gave expression to the missionary energy that accompanied the rapid growth of the Anglican Church in the Global South in the decades that followed. And yet, Andrews said, leaders found it difficult to establish clear means to promote the newly minted values. This acknowledgment led to the uncomfortable question of whether the structures of Anglicanism and the mindsets of its leaders retain vestiges of the idea that sisters and brothers from the Global South are colonial subjects rather than equal partners in the gospel.</p>
<p>The conference speakers were unanimous in their conviction that pausing to consider Toronto 1963 helps us see that mission is an essential strand of Anglicanism’s DNA. The very fact that Anglicanism is a global communion testifies to its missionary past and calls forth bold new missionary endeavors. The Rev. Ephraim Radner emphasized that MRI is important not merely as a historical example of such an endeavor but because contemporary Anglicanism struggles still to find structures that enact the missionary vision of Toronto 1963. “The missionary bloodstream” of Anglicanism, he argued, must continue to seek “new channels of missionary activity.”</p>
<p>Anglicanism’s missionary history, however, also calls forth repentance, and sets the agenda for the continued work of bringing north and south, east and west, together under Christ. In this Toronto 2013 set an important precedent. While leadership from the Global South was underrepresented at Toronto 1963, this certainly wasn’t the case at Toronto 2013. Six of nine plenary speakers were from the Global South, a clear statement that the organizers believe that if the principles of MRI are to take effect, if Anglicanism is to move into the future, northern Anglicans must be willing to embrace the posture of the student.</p>
<p>At Toronto 2013 the call for renewed dialogue and action came not from the North but from the South. There were — as there always are — important differences in the reflections and proposals. This, said the Most Rev. Bernard Ntahoturi, Archbishop of Burundi, is what we should expect because there is diversity in Africa just as there is diversity in North America. And he maintained, as did the other speakers, that this diversity calls forth clear modes of engagement.</p>
<p>For some of us, it seems more than a bit odd that the call for deeper fellowship should come from postcolonial contexts, from those we are taught to see as mere victims of colonialization and proselytization. We must not, however, miss the importance of this fact. It elicits a response: new efforts to live by the values of reciprocity and interdependence. But it does more than this. It also calls us to evaluate our assumptions about Anglicanism’s proselytizing past. It helps us to see that our missionary heritage <em>has always been</em> one of reciprocity and interdependence. Recent work in postcolonial studies has confirmed that the missionary encounter should rarely be described as an encounter between aggressor and victim — and indeed that to characterize it as such is to dehumanize the alleged victim. When missionary and native meet they are <em>both</em> changed forever, and the Christianity that comes to be practiced by them both becomes subtly yet importantly new — often in ways the missionary fails to recognize.</p>
<p>In our day, of course, there are important voices from the Global South that appear to have given up on visible unity with their brothers and sisters from the North. If they have done so however, it is certainly not on account of Anglicanism’s checkered history, but rather on account of a perceived repudiation of that history. Archbishop Justin Welby’s address to the conference seemed to challenge this type of logic, for he stressed that when Anglican leaders from around the globe meet together, they all come as sinners, and they inevitably represent not merely the aspirations but also the sins of their respective churches. It is evident that for those present at Toronto 1963 and those present at Toronto 2013 the sins of Anglicanism’s missionary past, though real, do not constitute insurmountable barriers to unity in Christ. Welby made it clear that his hope for the Communion is that today’s disagreements would be regarded in similar terms.</p>
<p>The events that transpired at Toronto 2013 would suggest that Welby’s hope is not ill-founded. The call for mutual responsibility and interdependence continues to come from the Global South. <em>Fellowship</em>, <em>affection</em>, and <em>hope</em> were the watchwords of the conference. The message that resounded loud and clear at Toronto 2013 is that the bonds forged in those first missionary encounters were familial bonds, bonds that cannot and must not be broken.</p>
<p><em>David Ney is a doctoral candidate at Wycliffe College in Toronto.</em></p>
<p><em>Image of the Rev. Ephraim Radner by Sue Careless</em></p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/anglican-congress-1963" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Anglican Congress 1963</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/pan-anglican-congress" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">pan-Anglican Congress</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/toronto-congress" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Toronto Congress</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-categories-top field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Categories:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/lead-story" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Lead Story</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/essays-reviews" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Essays &amp; Reviews</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Features</a></div></div></div>Thu, 10 Oct 2013 14:22:36 +0000Web Editor1129 at http://www.livingchurch.orgReviving Communionhttp://www.livingchurch.org/reviving-communion
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">In 1963, the Toronto Anglican Congress marked a certain coming of age of Anglicanism with the document “Mutual Responsibility and Interdependence in the Body of Christ.”</span></p>
<p>A one-day conference on September 18 gathered global Anglican leaders at Wycliffe College, University of Toronto, to discuss this theme of interdependence 50 years later in light of contemporary questions. More than 180 people, including five bishops from Africa and Asia, attended “Back to the Anglican Future: The Toronto Congress and the Future of Global Communion.”</p>
<p>The day opened with the Most Rev. Eliud Wabukala, Archbishop of Kenya, discussing <em>koinonia</em>, the Greek word for “fellowship.” Fellowship means “working together, sharing the challenges and joys of life,” but “unity cannot be easily attained,” he said. “Community on its own, without Christ, will collapse.”</p>
<p>The Rt. Rev. Stephen Andrews, Bishop of Algoma, quoted Michael Ramsey, the 100th Archbishop of Canterbury, who had warned the Toronto Congress: “A church which lives to itself will die by itself.” Just two years later the Anglican Church of Canada would hit its demographic peak; it has been in decline ever since.</p>
<p>Andrews told the audience that the interdependence statement of 1963 rings deeper today: “It is now irrelevant to talk of ‘giving’ and ‘receiving’ churches. The keynotes of our time are equality, interdependence, mutual responsibility.”</p>
<p>The Most Rev. Mouneer Anis, President Bishop of Jerusalem and the Middle East and Bishop in Egypt with North Africa and the Horn of Africa, spoke on “Why the Covenant Still Matters” and “Why the Instruments of Unity Still Matter.”</p>
<p>Anis compared the conflict in the Anglican Communion to an adulterous husband who hopes to reconcile with his wife while still continuing an amorous relationship with his mistress.</p>
<p>He recommended six steps to restore trust in the Anglican Communion: follow through on the recommendations of <em>The</em> <em>Windsor Report</em> and previous Primates Meetings; recognize and support faithful orthodox Anglicans who have been mistreated; recover conciliarity in the Lambeth Conference and the Primates Meetings; strengthen the proposed Anglican Communion Covenant; restructure the Anglican Consultative Council; and restructure the Anglican Communion Office.</p>
<p>The Rev. Ephraim Radner, an American member of the Covenant Design Group and professor of historical theology at Wycliffe, surveyed the historical landscape.</p>
<p>“Until 1950, all Anglican bishops were either British or American. And the British all went to the same two schools.” By 1963 the imperial British church was “long over” and any American imperial church was, he said, “short-lived.” National churches “cannot be autonomous, sovereign states,” Radner said. “Conflict is not something God wants but that he uses.”</p>
<p>The Rev. Canon Christopher Seitz, canon theologian for the Diocese of Dallas, offered a lament in his talk, “Why Encouragement for Parishes and Dioceses Matters,” with primary reference to the conservative or traditionalist remnant in North America.</p>
<p>“We’ve lost the war,” Seitz said about conflicts within the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada. “Can we hope for some moral space?”</p>
<p>The Most Rev. Bernard Ntahoturi, Archbishop of Burundi and Bishop of Matana, spoke on “Why Reconciliation in the Midst of Conflict Matters,” drawing on his experience in an impoverished country just emerging from a 12-year civil war. He reported that thousands had been killed in Burundi but only now was the nation “timidly” talking about truth and reconciliation.</p>
<p>“No one wanted to take responsibility,” he said, but “any unity not based on truth is a fragile reconciliation.” Ntahoturi celebrated the conference Eucharist at St. Paul’s Church on Bloor Street, and offered a benediction in both English and Kirundi.</p>
<p>The Very Rev. Kuan Kim Seng, dean of St. Andrew’s Cathedral in Singapore, spoke on “Why Mission and Theological Education Matter.” Kuan grew up in a non-Christian family that believed in ancestral worship and polytheism. He first heard of God the Creator as a 17-year-old. “I thank God that he chose me.”</p>
<p>Kuan noted that next year will mark the 200th anniversary of the first Protestant Chinese Christian’s baptism, and today the fastest-growing church in the world is in China. “Missions is the hallmark of the Church that is in sync with the heart of God,” he said.</p>
<p>Kuan does not believe short-term mission teams are a waste of God’s resources if such teams are trained properly. He sees the Global South and East as sending their own long-term missionaries and said the West should make room for them. He expressed concern that too many people are “in the church but not in Christ” and that the “prosperity gospel which spiritualizes materialism would maim, if not kill, the Church.”</p>
<p>The Most Rev. Ian Ernest, Archbishop of the Province of the Indian Ocean and Bishop of Mauritius, urged that the Anglican Communion not retreat into itself: “Our world is God’s world.” The Church is to be salt in the world, “preserving the world, not preserving itself.” He said the Anglican Communion’s lack of any system of canon law seriously weakens it.</p>
<p>The Rt. Rev. Josiah Idowu-Fearon, Bishop of Kaduna in violence-torn northern Nigeria, believes the Archbishop of Canterbury “has a very real influence.” He can “steer, push and lead” but he should not rule “autocratically, as some African leaders do.” Idowu-Fearon would have the Archbishop of Canterbury consult more regularly with senior prelates and work with more liaison officers.</p>
<p>Archbishop Justin Welby sent greetings via Skype. Welby said that in every generation Christians have thought their problems were “terminal” and yet the Church has survived.</p>
<p>The Most Rev. Fred Hiltz, Archbishop of the Anglican Church of Canada, was away on a brief sabbatical but sent greetings to his fellow primates through his secretary.</p>
<p><em>Sue Careless in Toronto</em></p>
<p><em>Image of Archbishop <span style="line-height: 1.538em;">Eliud Wabukala by Sue Careless</span></em></p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/anglican-communion" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Anglican Communion</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/responsibility" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">responsibility</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/toronto-congress" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Toronto Congress</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/mri" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">MRI</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-categories-top field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Categories:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/lead-story" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Lead Story</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/news" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News</a></div></div></div>Mon, 30 Sep 2013 14:05:55 +0000Web Editor1118 at http://www.livingchurch.org